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Jim Hightower

America's #1 Populist

"Middle-Class Warfare and the New Populist Revolution"

May 9, 2011Student Union Apollo Room

Presented in partnership with the AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS

National radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the book Swim Against the Current: Even a Dead Fish Can Go with the Flow, Jim Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought to Be—consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks. Believing that the true political spectrum is not right to left but top to bottom, Hightower has become a leading national voice for the 80 percent of the public who no longer find themselves within shouting distance of the Washington and Wall Street powers at the top.

A native Texan who was twice elected Texas agriculture commissioner, Hightower now broadcasts daily radio commentaries that are carried on more than 150 commercial and public stations, as well as on the web and on Radio for Peace International. Each month, 135,000 subscribers read his political newsletter The Hightower Lowdown, which has won both the Alternative Press Award and Independent Press Association Award.

Hightower is a New York Times bestselling author whose seven books include Thieves in High Places: They've Stolen Our Country and It's Time to Take It Back; If the Gods Had Meant Us to Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates; and There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road but Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos. His newspaper column is distributed nationally by Creators Syndicate. And despite all that writing, the populist road warrior still finds time to deliver more than 100 speeches a year to all kinds of groups.

Political columnist Molly Ivins said it best: "If Will Rogers and Mother Jones had a baby, Jim Hightower would be that rambunctious child—mad as hell, with a sense of humor."